GIOVANNI BATTISTA DE' CAVALIERI (1525-1601)

The Massacre of the Innocents

Details

GIOVANNI BATTISTA DE' CAVALIERI (1525-1601)
The Massacre of the Innocents
engraving, 1561, on two joined sheets of laid paper (as usual), without watermark, a fine impression of this large print in the very rare first state (of three), with thread margins, trimmed on the platemark in places, two tiny backed holes near the left sheet edge, a couple of short nicks and tears at the upper sheet edge, some minor, pale brown staining along a vertical fold at centre right, along the joint of the sheets and elsewhere, generally in very good condition
Plate & Sheet 470 x 596 mm.

Literature

Le Blanc 7

Brought to you by

Tim Schmelcher

tschmelcher@christies.com +44 20 7389 2268

Lot Essay

This depiction of the Massacre of the Innocents has traditionally been associated with Baccio Bandinelli. In 1999, after the emergence of an impression of the present, very rare first state in the Bibliothèque Nationale, Suzanne Boorsch interpreted the inscription Jo Baptista de Cavalle / ris Lagerinus incideb. / in AEdibus Salvianis. / .M.D.LXI. / ROMAE. as referring to the Florentine painter Francesco Salviati (Print Quarterly, 1999, vol. XVI, no. 3, p. 266f.). In the discussion following the discovery of this previously undescribed state however Michael Bury argued that the inscription related to the printer and publisher Ippolito Salviani, in whose workshop the engraving was presumably printed; a view then also shared by Boorsch (Print Quarterly, 2000, vol. XVII, no. 2, p.190). The question of the attribution of the composition hence remains unresolved.

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